Saturday 25 July 2015

Wanjun's questions part 1: why are Singaporeans insular?

Hi there, my reader Wanjun has left me a few questions which you can read in full in the comments section if you click on this hyperlink, but since I was going to have to type a pretty long reply to her, then I will share my post here. The first topic I will deal with is he insularity of Singaporean society Allow me to quote Wanjun to kick us off on this topic.

"As I get older, I cannot help but think that some (not all) Singaporeans are pretty narrow minded people. Their lives revolve around themselves and their tight circle of friends and family and not much else. Perhaps I am over-generalising, but this is the feeling I get when I hear some people speak and read their comments on Facebook and EDMW. They do not seem interested in bigger issues such as global warming, exploitation of foreign workers etc. I cannot understand this. Firstly, many Singaporeans have access to internet and can get news from all over the world in spilt seconds. We are quite lucky in the sense that international news are not censored unlike in other regimes. So why are some Singaporeans still so ill-informed about the world, and worse, do not even care? Second, there are many foreigners in Singapore, shouldn’t that make Singaporeans realise that there is a much bigger world out there that they should aspire to travel to, or at least read up on if they are unable or unwilling to travel? Is it because Singapore is a stressful place for kids and adults that at the end of the day, people cannot find time to broaden their horizons?"
It is a big world out there... are you interested?

Wanjun talked about how she was disappointed that many Singaporeans take very little interest in the world around them - that there isn't that curiousity to engage anything apart from what is immediately local to them. Well, I have a few explanations for that kind of mindset Wanjun - please note that I am certainly not condoning it, I am just explaining why they feel that way. I am mostly going to refer to my parents since you seemed to be describing them when you talked about this kind of mindset. Firstly, I have lived in so many different cities and have friends scattered all over the world. So for example, when I look at the civil war going on in Eastern Ukraine, I think about how it affects my Ukrainian friends who may have relatives caught up in the conflict there. It is the six degrees of separation theory. I may not be affected by the civil war in Eastern Ukraine - but I have friends with family members who are affected by the conflict, I can see the effect of the war on my Ukrainian friends whom I care for. However, someone like my father (a retired primary school teacher in Ang Mo Kio) is one step further from the conflict.

My father >> Me >> My Ukrainian friend in London (Olga) >> Her sister living in Eastern Ukraine (Anna)

So as you can see, I get concerned when I see how upset Olga is - I have a personal connection with Olga; but when it comes to my father, it is just one step too removed for him to be interested in what happens in Eastern Ukraine. One feels a sense of connection, one develops a sense of interest in something like the civil war in Ukraine if you can witness the effect it has on people we know; after all, we see so much reporting of war and conflict in the media - it has desensitized us over the years. We see yet another terrorist attack, yet another suicide bomber, yet another hurricane or drought, yet another plane crash, yet another civil war breaking out, yet another refugee crisis, yet another conflict making the news - it is until it is something that is pretty close to home, that affects people we know, that really makes us take personal interest in it. Otherwise, it is just another story that is in the newspaper about bad stuff happening.
Do you feel compassion for the plight of refugees?

So for these Singaporeans you talk about, they are unlikely to sit up and take notice if it is yet another story about say an atrocity carried out by Boko Haram in Northern Nigeria, but if it is a tragedy abroad involving many Singaporeans - then they will take notice. So why should they ignore the plight of the school girls kidnapped by Boko Haram in Nigeria but feel sorrow for the Singaporean students killed on Mt Kinabalu then? Again, it is the six degrees of separation theory: Even someone like my father is likely to know someone in Singapore who has lost a family member or a friend in the Mt Kinabalu earthquake. Whether or not he actually does is irrelevant - he is able to relate to the people who died, since he is a retired primary school teacher and the victims of the earthquake included primary school children and primary school teachers. My father was visibly upset by the episode and understandably so - but tragedies in Ukraine or Iraq? He's not interested - the reason is simple: too many degrees of separation.

If you are a Singaporean living and working in Ang Mo Kio and mostly interacting with other people in Ang Mo Kio, then the bulk of your social circle is going to centre around Ang Mo Kio. I'd like to think that even if that was the case, your social circle would still involve people from further afield. Amongst my Facebook friends are ex-schoolmates from my secondary school and JC who have gone on to do interesting things around the world: they are scattered far and wide across a few continents. Even if I did remain in Ang Mo Kio and worked there like my father, my social circle would still be wider than what was immediately local to me - but I think there would be an element of choice to maintain those contacts and keep them meaningful, or to simply neglect them without making any effort to maintain them. One has to make a conscious choice in taking an interest in our friends - if some people prefer not to, then that's their choice.
Do you feel connection with people from outside your local area?

As to why some people are able to take an interest in the wider world and others aren't - I think a lot of that also depends on what they think they can get out of it. I am going to compare my sister and my mother: my sister is very highly educated, a highly skilled professional and she has traveled so widely all over the world including South America and Africa. She enjoys these epic holidays she takes in these exotic countries (and she has been nagging at me to go to Peru for a long time - she is convinced I will totally love Peru). So even though she lives and works in Singapore, she takes a very interest in what goes on far away, particularly in what happens in the UK since I live here. In contrast, my mother is limited by her language skills - thus is she terrified about leaving Singapore. She has bad memories of an incident in America when a white person couldn't understand her (my mother's Singaporean accent is extremely strong); not only did she feel embarrassed by the incident, it also let her feeling paranoid that her English simply would not be understood outside Singapore. So for my mother, she doesn't enjoy traveling out of Singapore and thus her perspective on the outside world is completely different from my sister. Some people (like my sister) enjoy broadening their horizons, others (like my mother) do not. Such is life.

Wanjun's next question referred to the term 'quitters' used to apply to those who have chosen to leave Singapore - oh, much like myself then. Well I have a theory as to the origins of the term: you see, back in the 1980s, most Singaporean students would be quite content if they could earn themselves a place at NUS or NTU - both universities are excellent and have a good international reputation and ranking. Thus it would be only those students who had really poor results who were rejected by NUS/NTU and had to resort to going abroad to get a degree. Well things have change a lot since the 1980s - firstly, there are so many more universities in Singapore these days, you have a much broader range of local choices. Secondly, Singaporeans are a lot more savvy about further education these days: they may choose to pursue a course abroad because simply because it is not available in Singapore - it is not because they can't earn themselves a place in NUS/NTU but simply because their preferred field of study is simply not available at the local universities. And of course, thirdly, Singaporeans are also more aware these days of the universities around the world which are better than NUS/NTU. From there, stems the notion of "the first choice is to stay in Singapore, if you can't then second choice is to go abroad". This is true if you are comparing a degree from NUS vs one from a crappy university in the UK or Australia languishing at the bottom of the league table. This is not true however, if you are comparing an NUS degree vs one from Oxford/Cambridge/Ivy League. That's what league tables are for. The sensible thing to do of course, is to judge each individual case by its merits: is the student going abroad because she is a scholar bound for Oxford, or is she going to a university that issues degrees not worth the paper it is printed on?
I have written a post recently about what it takes to actually work abroad and let me jump to the punchline: it is remarkably hard to get a work permit to work abroad. If you are not a highly educated, highly skilled professional, then you can forget about getting a work permit in the West. In case you haven't realized, why would any other country want lowly educated, unskilled Singaporeans? Of course, there is a huge difference between studying at a crap university and actually trying to get a crap job in the West. Any crap university would gladly process your application and admit you as long as you pay the fees - you would however, simply be unable to get a work permit to do a lowly paid unskilled job in the west. So clearly, those who could actually secure a work permit abroad are probably doing pretty well - to label them 'quitters' because they choose not to remain in Singapore seems like an odd choice to say the least. Well the government is certainly aware of the problem and the brain drain that it causes.

But to delve further into this mentality, I have to use the example of my mother again. She simply doesn't have the skills to survive once you take her out of the Singaporean environment that she is so familiar with. So to put it bluntly, she's stuck in Singapore because she can't possibly survive anywhere else. She's hardly alone in this regard, it takes quite a lot of skills to be able to adapt to life in another country halfway around the world. Force her to live in New York or London and she'll be utterly miserable. So she's in Singapore not so much by choice, but really, by default. Yet if she wanted to feel better about her situation, she could claim that she is in Singapore because she is loyal to her motherland, to her country where she feels a great sense of belonging, as she is a patriotic Singaporean. You could use whatever words you want to dress up her justifications: the result is the same, she lives in Singapore and is never going to leave. So to make herself feel better about her situation, she focuses of warm, happy thoughts about patriotism and a sense of belonging to her beloved Singapore. Having to contemplate that others who can leave to seek greener pastures does raise uncomfortable questions, mostly about their own inadequacies which relate to why they cannot survive outside Singapore. That is why they have come up with the label of 'quitters' to dismiss those thoughts, because they don't want to face those very difficult questions about why they cannot leave Singapore.
,Life in Europe has been very good to me.

It is ultimately your choice what you want to do with your life - different people have different needs, different aspirations, different ambitions, different goals, so it is really not for us to judge what each individual ought or ought not to be doing with his/her life. If someone wants to be insular and not take too much notice of the big wide world out there, then I say, it's their loss but it is also their choice. But for them to then assume that there is something wrong with people who have ambitions to try to chase their dreams way beyond the shores of Singapore, then that's when they cross the line because they are assuming that others should want what they want.

That's it from me on this issue Wanjun. I will be moving onto your next question very shortly. Thanks for reading.

2 comments:

  1. Hello LIFT,

    Thank you for your wonderful reply. I remember you wrote a few posts on your anger towards Singapore and some Singaporeans for rejecting the Rohingya refugees. Many Singaporeans have no friends or relatives who are Rohingya refugees, hence their callous reaction towards them. Perhaps this shows the selfishness rather than the evilness of human nature, since at the end of the day, many people really care about only themselves and their loved ones.

    I also thought of something else. Perhaps it might be due to the "practical" mindset of many Singaporeans who went through a competitive, grades-emphasizing education system and then graduate into a money-minded society. Thus they might see little to no value in broadening their horizons beyond what they think they need to achieve in life (good grades, good partner, good job, good salary). I wonder if people living in fast-paced and competitive societies like Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan are like this too?

    I agree with your point on how some Singaporeans are in Singapore not by choice but by default. Some of them wish to move overseas but are aware of their lack of skills to move overseas, some are like what you said also don't have the skills to move but are afraid to confront this fact.

    I think there is a third category of people who are quite easy to spot on forums like EDMW and HWZ, They seem to be unaware of their own lack of skills to move overseas and genuinely think that Singapore is the best country in the world. They aren't even afraid to confront their fears because that fear simply does not exist in them! This third group of people are what I find the most astonishing, especially when they pass negative judgment on foreigners but fail to realise their weaknesses.

    Thank you!

    Regards,
    WJ

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    Replies
    1. Hi WJ, trust me, there are stupid people where ever you go in the world. Such is the nature of human society, there will always be some stupid people in every society. Yes I do recognize the kind of people you talk about on EDMW-HWZ - the best thing to do is just to steer clear of them and not let them get you down. That's why I have taken to blogging and have decided not to participate in forums.

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